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Bonus – Pedestrian Friendly Europe

Here’s a little something that Europe has going for it. This didn’t really happen in the UK, but then the UK isn’t really proper Europe, now is it? Everywhere else we have been so far…in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, and Latvia…there occurs a very specific and peculiar pedestrian-friendly phenomenon. A few very busy roads have electric walk / don’t walk signs. The rest…perhaps 75% of the crosswalks…are marked but have no supporting electric sign. Pedestrians are just supposed to walk across when they are ready. And the cars are supposed to yield. And they do.

Every time you see one of these…

…you just get to start walking across it. It’s madness!

This would never work in the US. I’m trying to imagine this system in effect in New York City. Or Boston. At the very least it would take years to retrain the people of America. During the learning interval, thousands of brave walkers would be mowed down!

Every time I start walking or running across one of these busy roads, and I trust that the oncoming traffic will just stop because they are supposed to, I think about and pity the poor Latvian or Swede who visits New York and steps prematurely onto a crosswalk there by force of habit. Instant Flatlander.